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The present Governor of our Society of Colonial Wars 
in the District of Columbia, Mr. William Van Zandt 
Cox, and several other fellow members have recently 
requested a copy of mv paper of April 11, 1906, m which 
I suggested that a monument be erected by the Society 
to commemorate the Colonial war services of the three 
Colonels Beall. 

I have accordingly thought best to have the paper 
printed for complimentary presentation to each of my 
associates in the Society, hoping thereby to arouse new 
interest in the proposed memorial. 

Zebina Moses. 
Washington, D. C, March 5, 1908. 



Washington, D. C, April 11, 1906. 
Your Excellency and Fellow Members 

OF THE Society of Colonial Wars: 

At its last meeting the Society made an urgent appeal 
to members to communicate any historical material they 
might have, and I accordingly present a few notes which 
I am far from regarding as a finished paper. They have 
one merit in that they relate to the District of Columbia, 
in which our Society is located. They are intended to 
open the question whether after we have placed a tablet 
or monument comm'^morating the landing of the Brad- 
dock Expedition we should not also place a tablet 
exploiting the colonial fame of Colonel George Beall and 
of Colonel Ninian Beall, his father. 

About one year ago I visited the old Presbyterian 
Cemetery of Georgetown, and there 1 found many stones 
erected in memory of noted people of Colonial days. 
The condition of the old graveyard is a disgrace to 
humanity. It has been made a dumping ground for tin 
cans, carrion, and refuse, and the ground is being 
occupied under so-called squatters' rights by negroes and 
others— a barn going up while I was on the grounds. 

A diagram which I will circulate among the members 
outlines the original location of the cemetery and what 
remains of it. The Beall family burial plot is shown 
upon the diagram. 











Thirty- third Street. 






Row 


of 


houses 










<i3 








Row of houses 




Graveyard. 


Beall 
Lot. 














occupied by negroes. 






Graveyard. 






« 












Part oi 


Graveyard. 






Built over. 








Old I 
Gi 


*resbyterian 
aveyard. 



Thirty-fourth Street. 



That the neglect has been of long standing is shown 
from the Chronicles of Georgetown, by Richard P. 
Jackson, published in 1878. 

He states: 

"The following appeared in a town paper: 'It would have been 
difficult to believe that the grounds belonged to a Christian com- 
munity. The broken fences, open gates, grazing cattle upon the 
very grass that flourished over the bosom of departed worth, the 
marks of sacrilegious destruction upon the monumental pile by 
idle, rude, and vulgar hands, sickened my very soul and almost 
determined me not to be buried in a place appropriated for the dead 
or even to allow a turf to mark the spot where my remains may 
rest. 

Signed, A Non-Resident. ' 

"When the committee appointed a number of ladies a collection 
was made among the lot holders to put the graveyard in order. 
Among the tombstones, Robert Peter, the first Mayor; James 
Gillespie, M. C. from North CaroHna; Wm. Waters, soldier of the 
Revolution; Col. Geo. Beall, born in Georgetown, 1729. The town 
must have been a villiage at the time of Col. Beall's births" 

The description of 1878 fits the condition of the grounds 
at the present time. A member of the Presbyterian 
Society of Georgetown, (which still owns the ground), 
told me a couple of weeks since that the Society had no 
money with which to improve the condition of the 
premises or even to litigate with the squatters. 

Near the east side of the grounds may be seen two 
sandstone monuments about forty inches high, with 
inscriptions reading: 




Sacred to the Memory 

of 

COLONEL GEORGE BEALL. 

He was born in Georgetown 

on the 26th day of February 

1729. 

He died Oct. 15th 

1807 

In the 79th Year of his Age 

Flaked or 

He lived chipped | ected 

and died o^- mented. 



7V(9/'£'.— Sandstone, about 40 inches high and 26 inches broad. 

Njte. — In the old Presbyterian Cemetery between Q and R and 
Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth streets at Georgetown, about 150 
feet from R and about 60 feet from east end of cemetery, on a 
former graveyard road running north and south. 



Here lies the body of 

Elizabeth Beall 

the wife of 

Colonel George Beall 

who departed this life 

Oct. the 2d 1748 
aged about 40 years. 



Nute.—Oi sandstone, about 33 inches high and 24 inches wide. 

Note. — Between this stone and the monument to Col. Beall is a 
stone slab about 33x24 inches; the inscription is flaked off, except 
part of the word "aged." This broken stone may have marked 
the grave of the first Colonel George Beall, husband of Elizabeth 
and father of Colonel George Beall, born 1729. 



I pass to members for- examination a rough sketch of 
these stones and inscriptions, together with a photograph 
of the inscription relating to Colonel George Beall which 
a friend has taken for me. A member of the Washing- 
ton family was also buried in the lot. . See drawing 
showing inscription reading: 




THOS. B. A. WASHINGTON 



Eldest Son of George C. and E. B. 
Washington who departed this 
Hfe on 

the 2d of February in the 

Year of our Lord 

1809. 



Note. — This stone had sunk so far in the ground that I could not 
read the age. 

Note. — This stone is placed about two feet directly back of stone 
to the wife of Colonel George Beall, and it looks as though the 
burial of Thomas Washington was directly above the body of 
Elizabeth Beall, whose interment had been made 61 years 
previously. • 



Early Days of 



Miss S. Somervell Mackall's 
Washington," states: 

"The grounds of Oak Hill Cemetery originally belonged to 
Eliza Beall, wife of George C. Washington, a grandnephew of the 
immortal George, who in appearance resembled his uncle greatly. " 



I now quote from a book entitled, "The Brooke 
Family," by Thomas Welling Balch, which, please note, 
gives in full the inscription since obliterated on the stone 
to the /rs^ Colonel George Beall. The quotation reads: 

"Colonel George Beall, youngest son of Ninian Beall, born at 
Upper Marlboro in 1695 and died at Georgetown March 15, 1780." 

The inscription on gravestone is: 

"Here lieth (IJolonel George Beall who departed this life March 
15, 1780, aged 85 years." 

The word "aged" was all that was left of this inscrip- 
tion when I saw the stone a year ago. 

Balch goes on to say: " He. was buried by the side of 
his wife (see page 22) in the famihi burying ground near 
the honse. This house is described in brackets as the 
premises known at present as '^( N street, near TMrty- 
firsf).'' 

"Here lieth the body of Elizabeth Beall" (Elizabeth Brooke), 
"the wife of Colonel George Beall, who departed this life Oct. 2, 
1748, aged about 49 years." * * * "In recent years their 
bodies, with those of their children, were removed to Oak Hill." 

From the foregoing it would seem that the Presby- 
terian Cemetery might have been laid out around the 
jyrivate iurial lot of the Bealls. 

Before leaving the subject of the old graveyard I will 
state that though the stones remain, it is certain that 
the bodies of the Bealls were removed. 

I have given this much space to a description of this 
old cemetery partly because it affords knowledge of a 
fast vanishing record of men of note living in Colonial 
days, and should be interesting to our Society for that 
reason, and mainly, because we get there from records 
on stone dates of birth and death and military titles 
borne by the Bealls. In Colonial days no one was 
given soldierly rank by courtesy. Certainly such high 
titles would not be placed on the Beall gravestones 
unless of right they belonged there. We also get from 



these cemetery inscriptions the association with George- 
town at as early a date of birth as 1729, and also with 
the lands which at a still earlier date belonged to Colonel 
Ninian Beall, and on which Georgetown was afterwards 
built. 

We will now proceed to the more important work of 
examining as to the prominence in Colonial times of 
these three worthies. 

I quote first from the, "Chronicles of Georgetown," 
by Richard P. Jackson, a book of 348 pages published in 
1878, page 3: 

"The Legislature of Maryland by act of May 15, 1751, authorized 
Henry Wright Crabb, John Needham, John Claggett, James Perry, 
and David Lynn, Commissioners to lay out and erect a town on the 
Potomac River above the mouth of Rock Creek and empowered 
them to purchase 60 acres belonging to George Gordon and George 
Beall, to survey the same into 80 lots to be erected into a town and 
to be called Georgetown." 

From page 5: 

"Others again suppose that the name came from George Beall, 
who was an able soldier and a great fighter of Indians in the 
province, but more likely it took its name from George IL" 

Observe this historian's statement that George Beall 
the 2d was an "able soldier and graat fiyhter of 
Indians." 

I now quote again from the volume entitled the, 
" Brooke Family of Whitchurch, Hampshire, England." 
by Thomas Welling Balch, a scholarly and careful 
writer: 

"Col Ninian Beall was born 1625 in Scotland. He was very busy 
fighting Indians until the end of his life, rising higher and higher 
until he became a full colonel. * * On July 22, 1699, the 
Maryland Assembly passed the following act: 

' An act of Gratitude to Col. Ninian Beall. For his services 
upon all incursions and disturbances of the neighboring Indians 
75£ sterling.' 



9 

In 1703 he received the following grant from Lord Baltimore 
which included much of the ground upon which Georgetown now 
stands. 

TV 

Ninian Beall's patent is for 795 acres called the Rock of Dum- 
bartofi. The author gives the deed in full pages 25, 26 and 27. 

Ninian Beall's will on record in Annapolis commences: 'I, Ninian 
Beall, of Prince Georges County. ' 

He died in 1717 in his 93d year." 

In further confirmation of my deductions from the 
gravestones, and of my comments as to Colonial and 
Military titles, I quote again from Balch's "Brooke 
Family:" 

"George, the 4th Child and 2d son of Colonel George Beall and 
Elizabeth Brooke, his wife, was also in the army, as the inscription 
on his tombstone shows. He served iu the Company of Colonel 
George Beall. He was born in Georgetown on the 26th day of Feb- 
ruary, 1729. He died Oct. 15, 1807, in the 79th year of his age. 
He lived respected and died lamented." 

As showing that Indians were hostile and that there 
was Indian fighting within a hundred miles of George- 
town at as late a date as 1755, I now quote from Scharf 's 
''Western Maryland," Vol. 1, page 93: 

' ' In consequence of these outrages Governor Sharpe on the 
18th day of October called out the militia of the Province. 
******* Governor Sharpe ordered into 

service the militia of Frederick, Prince Georges, Baltimore, Cecil, 
Anne Arundel, Charles, and St. Marys Counties to rendezvous at 
Frederick Oct. 10, ]755:- 

(Georgetown was at that time in Frederick County.) 
On page 94 of the same history, and relating to the 
same period (1755), I quote: 

' 'Scalping parties approached to within thirty miles of Baltimore. " 

To summarize: 

We have historical statements that here in the District 
of Columbia were the estates of three Colonels and 
Indian fighters of the Colonial period. 

They were great land holders. Balch further states: 



10 

"On Jany. 18, 1720, he, (Col. Ninian Beall(, received a grant 
of 1,380 acres known as Addition to the Rock of Dumbarton,^'' 

This would make the estate total 2,175 acres. 

I now quote from Miss S. Somervell Mackall's "Early- 
Days of Washigton:" 

"Mrs. Geo. C. Washington, (who was Eliza Beall), lived on the 
S3uth side of Road St. in the house now owned by Columbus 
Alexander's family. WiUiam W. Corcoran bought 15 additional 
acres of this land known as the Rock of Dumbarton for $3,000 and 
presented it to the town as a burying ground. His contributions 
to Oak Hill amounted to $20,000." * * * * <<rj,j^e 
grounds of Oak Hill Cemetery originally belonged to Eliza Beall, 
wife of George C. Washington — a grandnephew of the immortal 
George, who in appearance resembled his uncle greatly." 

For further identification of localities I quote again 
from Miss Mackall's book, page 154: 

"To each of his daughters Mr. Beall gave a double square of 
Georgetown Heights; to Benj. Mackall's wife (Catherine) part of 
the Rock of Dumbarton known as Mackall's Square, where quite 
a large house was built. 100 years ago this building was removed 
to another part of Mr. Beall 's estate on Congress St., where it 
still stands. ' ' 

On page 158 of the book is given a picture of this old 
wooden Beall house. 

The Rev. T. B, Balch in a rare pamphlet published in 
1859 entitled, "Reminiscences of Georgetown," men- 
tions as follows the descendants of Col. George Beall: 

"A son, Thomas Brooke Beall, President of the Farmers and 
Mechanics Bank of Georgetown, died in 1820. In 1782 the eldest 
daughter married Rev. Dr. Balch of the Presbyterian Church on 
Bridge St. 

Thomas P.eall, brother of George, built a home on the heights 
called Dumbarton and died in 1819. 

Thomas had two daughters— one married a great nephew of 
General Washington, the other married Major John Peter, once 
Mayor of Georgetown." 

According to Thomas Welling Balch in his able w ork 
on the "Brooke Family" and from the passage I have 
already quoted,, the original home or manor house of the 



11 

Bealls stood at what is now known as N street near 
Thirty-first Street. 

How does all this appeal to our Society? I think I 
may assume that it is the sentiment of this Society that 
we should prove our faith by some works, and I know 
of no better way than by placing monuments or tablets 
to commemorate events and noted men of the Colonial 
period. The District of Columbia is less than ten miles 
square, and we are therefore territorially restricted. I 
think that first we should mark the spot of Braddock's 
landing or route of march, and second, I favor a monu- 
ment either at the site of the old Beall mansion or near 
the gate inside the inclosure in Oak Hill Cemetery, with 
an inscription stating in a general way that the monu- 
ment is" erected by he Society of Colonial Wars in the 
District of Columb:a on a part of what was known as 
the "Rock of Dumbarton," the name of the estate in 
succession of Colonel Ninian Beall, born 1625, Colonel 
George Beall, born 1695, and Colonel George Beall, born 
in Georgetown in 1729, all noted Indian fighters. The 
"Act of Gratitude" of the Maryland Assembly might 
be quoted on the tablet, as it, or at least its caption, is 
very short. 

These notes are at best incomplete. I am sure that 
Mr. Hyde or Mr. Peter or others of our membership, 
who were born in Georgetown, could have given us more 
light. 

I hope I have aroused some interest in my subject 
and shall be gratified if members of our Society will add 
to my unfinished researches. 



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